Patients in a medical care facility often require movement from one location to another within the facility. This frequent movement is often necessitated by the layout or configuration of the facility. A typical medical care facility is organized into several specialty centers. These centers may include, for example, an emergency room, the patient's room, a radiology center, operating rooms and a recovery center. Each of these centers typically has a bed (single surface platform) or procedure area onto which the patient must be transferred upon their arrival into the center. For example, if a patient is brought into the emergency room they usually arrive in an ambulance. Upon arrival the patient must be transferred from the ambulance gurney to a bed in the emergency room. If the physician in the emergency room requires an x-ray for his diagnosis, the patient must be transferred from the bed in the emergency room onto a transport gurney. The gurney is then transported to the radiology center and the patient is placed onto the x-ray table. After the x-ray procedure is complete, the patient is transferred onto another gurney and transported back to the emergency room where the patient is then transferred back into a bed. Thus, prior to being admitted into the medical care facility, the patient has already required five transfer events (from the ambulance gurney to the emergency room bed, from the bed onto a gurney, from the gurney to the x-ray table, from the x-ray table back to a gurney, and from the gurney back to bed) and three transport events (from the ambulance to the emergency room bed, from the bed to the radiology center and from the radiology center back to the emergency room bed). If the patient is then admitted into the medical care facility there are two more transfer events and another transport event.
Patient transfer is typically performed when transferring the patient from a bed to a transport device such as a gurney. Often times the patient is not conscious or cannot physically assist in the transfer and so the hospital personnel must perform the transfer. The current patient transfer method with a bed sheet or thin plastic sheet requires between four and six personnel for incapacitated patients depending on patient size and personnel available. Current transfer methods are entirely a manual process, which requires significant lifting, pushing and pulling onto a transferring device (e.g. a roller-board or a back board), lifting the patient from the bed and placing the patient on a gurney. Patient handling is the leading cause of hospital staff injury. While it is not clear if patient surface transfer is the leading cause, it does appear to cause approximately 4000 reported incidents of injury/year according to US Bureau of Labor Statistics data, ranging in a direct cost of between $28 and $112 Million/year—depending on injury severity. Furthermore, this process can lead to injury to the patient caused by either improper manipulation or dropping. Since studies show that the average weight of the population is increasing, this transfer process will continue to become more difficult and injury-prone in the future. The disclosed PS3 single surface design allows a single person to easily transfer a patient, along with the auxiliary equipment for the patient, such as intravenous fluids and medications, which remain connected throughout the transfer of the patient.
There is additionally a need to improve patient movement through a medical care facility and reduce the time prior to starting of the treatment. This is exemplified by the need for reduction in the time required to provide treatment for stroke victims once they have arrived in the hospital. Data has demonstrated that the current manual, multi-person transfer of patients to imaging equipment were a key bottleneck in the diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients. Analysis of the data indicated that 20 to 40 minutes alone could be lost prior to the start of treatment for a stroke victim due to the standard transfer procedures from bed to radiologic device tables. Furthermore, a need exists to minimize disturbance/movement of patients, especially spinal injury victims, where the possibility of harming the patient during transfer is a very real possibility.
With regard to hospital staff injuries during patient transfers, it is well documented that immobilized acute care patients currently require multiple, injury-prone, manual, multi-person transfers from one surface to another throughout the care process from the incoming ambulance gurney to a hospital gurney and within the hospital for triage, imaging, surgery and various testing. This care process can vary from a short period (hours) to a couple of days.
In recognition of these needs to provide improvements in the areas of efficiency, cost and continuity of patient care, the instant inventor has provided herein a Patient Single Surface System (PS3) which provides a stable, cantilever frame design to support a resting and supporting surface (e.g. a bed) which provides a single surface platform on which the patient remains at all times, even during transfer from one surface to another (i.e. transfer to triage beds, imaging tables, diagnostic tables, gurneys, etc.). The PS3 cantilever design and contoured single support surface for transfer requires only a single person, regardless of patient weight, to position the unit above the surface for transfer, and subsequently lower them mechanically with the cantilever frame. Lifting, pulling, and or pushing of the patient is not required. Further, additional personnel are not required to move the patient, even for completely incapacitated patients.